Solidarity with the people of Iran

Since late December, large numbers of Iranians have taken to the streets across the country. What began as protests over economic hardship has increasingly echoed the wider resistance that followed the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022, with citizens again challenging the authority of the Islamic Republic.

The theocratic regime has responded brutally. Human rights groups report dozens or hundreds killed, thousands detained, widespread internet blackouts, and the use of live ammunition against protesters. Officials have also issued threats of execution for those labelled ‘enemies of god’. Despite this repression, protests have continued.

Evidence suggests that Iranians are increasingly opposed to theocratic rule. In 2020, a major nationwide survey conducted by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), an independent research group led by Iranian academics, found that only around 40% of respondents identified as Muslim, compared with the official census figure of over 99%. The GAMAAN survey found that around 22% identified as having no religion, with others describing themselves as ‘spiritual’ or aligned with minority belief traditions. Online surveys in authoritarian contexts have methodological limits but with such results as these, they are surely indicative of a significant shift in belief and identity.

Historian Professor Ali Ansari has argued that this shift is one of the unintended consequences of decades of ‘imposed organised religion,’ with many Iranians now ‘adamant that there should be separation of [religion] and state… they don’t want to have religion imposed on them’. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, he observed growing demands for accountable government, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience. Notably, some criticism has also come from within religious institutions themselves, even though dissenting clerics have historically faced punishment. When combined with economic difficulties, these objections are encouraging wholesale rejection of Ali Khamenei’s Islamic regime.

The significance of these protests extends far beyond Iran’s borders. When any government claims divine authority to police thought or belief, it strikes at human dignity. What many Iranians are demanding is not the promotion of any particular ideology, but something more basic and universal: the freedom to think freely, to freedom to believe or not believe, and freedom to shape their own lives without state coercion.

There were signs of Iranians risking their personal freedom for the principle of freedom in 2025 when impromptu rock concerts began to break out on the streets of Tehran. A viral video of Iranians rocking out to the sounds of ‘Seven Nation Army’ by the White Stripes on a busy Tehran street circulated widely last year, in spite of harsh restrictions on musical performances and Western music and the regime’s renewed crackdown on street performers. The basic human need for joy and release was met with joyless repression in the name of state religion.

In secure democracies with protections for human rights, principles such as freedom of thought and freedom of belief can feel abstract and easy to take for granted. In Iran, people are risking their lives for them: students, workers, parents, and others refusing to surrender their moral agency.

History suggests that meaningful change rarely comes from those in power deciding to relinquish it voluntarily. As in Iran today, it comes when ordinary people show extraordinary courage, even when the outcome remains uncertain.

Humanists UK stands with those in Iran who are calling for freedom of thought, conscience, and belief. Their struggle is a reminder that these freedoms are not luxuries, but the foundations of a humane society and a democratic state.